Over the past few decades, the cellular/wireless industry has advanced by leaps and bounds. Throughout the world, mobile devices have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life. The enormous proliferation of the mobile device is nothing short of incredible. But, with it has surfaced a host of major problems much to the detriment of society. Every technical advancement and development has certain associated challenges and the cell phone is no exception. Many inherent life threatening problems are gaining light speed momentum. Such problems include increased accidents from driver distraction due to mobile devices, increased disruption and cheating in the classroom, increased contraband, gang activity, and death threats from inside the prison system etc. These problems come with a magnificent cost. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that distracted driving alone costs developed countries between one and three percent of GDP.
A few mobile application attempts have been made to solve the problem behind the wheel and some cell frequency jamming attempts have been tried in various prison systems. Such solutions, however, face impenetrable obstacles such as: current law in various countries, uninstalling the application, turning off the Bluetooth, Bluetooth pairing requirements, GPS latency and signal lapses, large number of varied mobile platforms, continuous updating, closed platforms, battery drain, and the inability to affect Skype™ and satellite phones which prisoners easily obtain.
The most significant obstacle facing all solution providers is the lack of universal standards within the mobile device industry. Currently, the mobile device manufacturers have no universal platform for developing standard safety technologies. Since there are no standards, even a simple safety feature cannot be universally applied across all mobile devices. And since safety is a global concern, a solution which can only be applied to select mobile devices is not preferred. In order to combat these societal problems, there exists a well felt need to design and implement universal distraction prevention and safety technologies for all mobile communication devices.
Because there are hundreds of different cell phone makes and models combined with open, closed & partially closed configurations, developing a single simple comprehensive solution for all mobile phone architectures is considered impossible. Notwithstanding such impediments, the task to effectively implement safety standards and methods to prevent cellular distractions to benefit society must be carried out in a timely and undisruptive manner.
In addition, other current obstacles include but are not limited to quick detection and connectionless non-pairing communication with Bluetooth devices, deterioration of cellular battery life, quick and easy application disablement.
Moreover, existing systems and methods only provide a partial solution for a single environment. For example, jamming in prisons which is illegal in many countries prohibits emergency calling and is therefore undesirable for schools and hospitals and such. Art to provide solutions for distracted driving requires some form of pairing which makes an automatic universal application impossible. The pairing dilemma in essence makes each mobile device car specific. For example, even if such a system is installed on a teen's car, should the teen drive the parent's car or sibling's car or friend's car, the mobile application will not work unless an entirely new pairing is involved for that specific car. It also creates the problem requiring a new software upload for each system change or system upgrade to correspond to the changed system. Such a system leaves parents and employers frustrated as the system no longer works properly. Also, parents and employers won't have any available working system if they happen to purchase a phone with a closed architecture thereby preventing system functionality inhibition.
There is, therefore, a need for a simple, cost effective improvement to mobile communication technologies to adopt and implement a standardized set of safety protocols such that new safety enhancement systems and methods to prevent mobile distractions can easily be engineered and adopted for all new and existing mobile phones. There is also a need for a simple, cost effective improvement to Bluetooth technology devices to apply a universal set of address codes to work in tandem with the mobile device embedded distraction prevention protocols.